Traveller has been around for a long time, with the three original 'little black books' appearing in 1977, and this incarnation of the ruleset recreates the excitement of the first, with the same simple and elegant ruleset underpinning everything, streamlined to meet contemporary gaming tastes.

It opens with introductory material including a bare-bones introduction to the concept of role-playing games, thoughts on suitable campaign types and a discussion of technology levels, which vary across known space. We then move directly into Character Creation, which as old hands will know, can be an absorbing pastime of itself never mind essential preparation for participating in an actual game. Starting by rolling characteristics, you then choose a homeworld and the career(s) your character has pursued before embarking on an adventuring career, the main purpose being to gain skills. It also builds a backstory for the character, who is generally quite a mature individual compared to other games. The backstory is based, like a lot of the career progression, on die rolls... and yes, it is possible to perish before you even start play! There's quite a wide range of careers available, over and above the predominantly military ones from the original game - as well as Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts and Merchants there are diverse careers like Entertainer, Rogue, Scholar, Agent (law enforcement), Drifter, Nobility and Citizen from which to choose. A neat addition is the 'skill package', a list of skills appropriate to the campaign type you want to play from which the characters take turn choosing skills that they lack, thus ensuring that the party can at least handle basic tasks that will arise. Add the mustering out benefits and you are ready to go. For those who do not like the basic system, there are variants such as point-buy characteristics and even skills, and details on generating alien characters. So far, a human has been assumed. This talks in general terms to begin with, but also introduces the standard Traveller races quite briefly, noting that each could fill a book by itself. (Over the course of time, these books have been brought out, you'll find them in the Third Imperium line.)

The next section is Skills and Tasks which opens with a explanation of 'Task Checks', the way in which actions are resolved. Most are either skill or characteristic based, with a standard 2d6 roll being modified according to the skills or other factors being brought to bear (brute strength, for example) and situational modifiers. For standard tasks, you need to get an 8 in total to succeed, but difficulty modifiers may be applied at the Referee's discretion to make it harder or more easy. There are plenty of examples, and these continue through the ensuing discussion of all the skills available and how they can be used to effect during the course of a game. This is followed by an extensive section on Combat, again well illustrated with examples and with a wide range of possible actions being presented.

Combat is not the only danger characters face, of course, and the next section - Encounters and Dangers - look at all manner of things other than brawls that could threaten life or limb or spoil your whole day - animals and environmental dangers (natural and unnatural), as well as how you heal, creating NPCs and more. The animals bit provides enough detail to let you invent strange critters to be encountered on the planets that you visit. Within the NPC section there are notes on giving them memorable personalities and a collection of ready-made Patrons to give the party something to do. This section rounds out with a wealth of random encounters and events that may be something going on in the background or else may turn into a complete adventure if not campaign.

Next comes a vast Equipment section which will let your character get his hands on virtually anything he might need for the forthcoming adventures. Not just weapons and armour (although there's plenty of those), there's all manner of stuff from drones to survival gear, medical equipment to communications and entertainment systems... you name it, it's probably there... apart from that necessity, a spaceship. This is dealt with comprehensively in the next section, Starship Design - again something that can be as much fun as creating characters. Examples are given, which can be used straight away if you do not wish to go through the whole process. Once you have a ship the following section, Starship Operations, explain the rules and concepts underlying its use, including operating costs and various dangers... and this is followed in turn by the Space Combat section.

The final sections deal with Psionics (powers of the mind, which you may or may not choose to allow in your game), Trade (with lots of tables to enable you to automate the process considerably yet model it fairly well) and finally World Creation. This provides an elegant system for devising planets in an awesome variety for the party to visit in their travels.

Well conceived and updated from the originals, this work recaptures all the excitement and sheer potential for adventure presented by those Little Black Books. A neat addition is little snippets of information scattered throughout in grey text boxes - anything from the tradition of Jump dimming to an adventure seed you could develop into a complete adventure - which are well worth ready. A worthy successor to the original Traveller which maintains its flavour, its essence, well.

This is a fair attempt at updating what is essentially classic Traveller (CT) little black books to 8. I say 'fair attempt' because although the basic idea was there, it was rather sloppy in it's execution. Overall production quality and layout is no improvement over rpgs from the late 1980's to early 1990's. Artwork consists of basic monochrome drawings in a style of the same vintage, yet other rpgs have moved on with a much more sophisticated level of production. With modern computer graphics available to us all these days, there is really no excuse for such sloppy and lazy production. Character generation is ok - somewhere between little black books 1- 3 and books 4 - 8. Starship construction is essentially books 1 - 3. Larger ships require 'High Gaurd. '

Overall, considering that this is just a core rule book, it is farly expensive for what you get if you pay full price for it. I actually purchased it on special when it was really cheap. At the price I paoed ot was actually a bargain! At full price, however, it is as with a lot of othe Mongoose 'Traveller' rpg products, overpriced.

This is an expensive product for something that was ripped straight out of the d20 3.5 SRD with just the mechanic changed from d20 to 2d6. It's very much like CT in what it does and only the mechanic and skill lists are new, really.

The art work is crap. Sorry but this is what helps set the pace and feel of the game.
It had no connection to the past art of the game, too much FANTASY looking, not very Science Fiction looking.

And the ship floor plans are a nice touch, adding even the fighter. BUT they changed too much and non for the better.

This is first impression once I looked at it. Now I have not read the content, its surface glance. (It looks like the mechanics of the game match up with the old....)
BUT this is often a indicator of if it would get a person to pickup the game and run with it.

The character sheet is TOO busy, I liked the clean simple form from the Classic Traveller. It s like who ever wrote the book and commissioned the art has no idea what Traveller is.

I am happy it is not the crappy Steve Jackson version.... but it has so much wrong:

Poorly organized. Its hard to tell when one section ends and another begins.

I have been playing Traveller since the late 70's and early 80's.
If its not broke don't fix it. The classic game Books 1,,2,3 and the detailed Branches 4 Mercs
5 Navy, 6 Scouts, 7 Merchant Marine was the peak. Character creation was a mini game in itself. Unlike the this one.
The current book covers the basic ideas but loses the flavor.
My main reason for buying was to use with the Hammers Slammers expansion.
Sorry but this one missed the mark.

An excellent release of the rules. In feel, it goes back to the original 3 small books before High Guard and Striker (not that those were bad products). The power is somewhere between the original and the later supplements, but all the character bases of the supplements are covered in the one book. The overall publishing quality is good. For the Traveller fan (or any Sci-Fi loving RPG player) a must buy.

Thousands of sci-fi worlds at your fingertips with this toolbox. Everything is concisely and comprehensively written into this book, meaning it's the only one you will ever need to own. The layout is simple, but very easy to follow (this being the point), and it's as felxible as you want to make it. Totally recommended - and the first truly progressive update on the Classic game.

This is the single best reinvention Traveller has yet experienced. The core rules are everything you could ever want, and does a fine job of selling me on the supplements by virtue of its polished and complete nature....put another way, the core book is so well done it compels me to by the supplements.

LIKES: provides an excellent ruleset from which to run classic science fiction campaigns, and touches on expanding to settings outside of the classic Traveller universe setting of the Imperium.Clean layout, good index, and the V2 edition has some very nice art. This edition is spiritually and mechanically closer to the original CT and MT than any later editions, as well...a good thing for me.

DISLIKES: not much to complain about. Early purchasers for the first print dealt with a few odd bits of errata, but those are all fixed in the PDF edition.